‘Every Child in Turkey Born with 5,513 Dollars of Debt’

Click to read the article in Turkish

Economic Policies Vice Presidency of the main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) has prepared a report entitled "the Crisis of Turkey".

According to the report, while a child was born with 1,963 US Dollars of debt in 2002, when the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to power, a child was born with 5,513 US Dollars of debt in 2018, which approximately accounts for 30,000 Turkish Lira.

External debt more than tripled in 16 years

As reported by Başak Kaya from the daily Sözcü, the following information has been shared by the CHP:

"Since 2002, the external debt of Turkey has increased by three and a half times and reached 450 billion dollars. While the government prides itself in paying 23,5 billion dollars of debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the external debt has grown by 319 billion dollars.

"Over the last 16 years, the consumer credit debt of citizens has increased by 176 times and become 399,4 billion Turkish Lira and their individual credit card debt has increased by 24 times and reached 104,8 billion Turkish Lira.

"The total debt of the state, citizens and companies has exceed the total income of the country. In 2002, a citizen had 94 Turkish Lira of debt for his or her 100 Turkish Lira income. As of the third quarter of 2018, this figure has increased to 120 Turkish Lira of debt.

Agricultural lands have shrunk

"While the agricultural lands cultivated in Turkey were 239 million decares in 2002, they have shrunk to 197 million decares in 2018.

"In the last 16 years, the goods imported by Turkey in the fields of agriculture and husbandry have exceeded 95 billion dollars. In 2018, Turkey has become the second country which imported the largest amount of cattle from the US. While the population of China is bigger than Turkey by 17 times, the number of cattle imported by Turkey is bigger than China by 9 times.

External debt has increased

"Since 1923, when the Republic was founded, the products imported to and exported from Turkey were the same, which means that the external debt of the country was zero.

"As for now, the external debt of the country has increased incrementally. The foreign trade balance of Turkey has a weekly deficit of 1,2 billion dollars on average.

Reserves of Central Bank on decrease

"Turkey, which ranked 59th in the Rule of Law Index in 2014, has ranked 109th in 2019, which points to a decrease of 50 ranks in five years.

"As for the reserves in the deposit of the Central Bank, they cannot even suffice to the short-term debts. In 2002, there was a reserve of 169 US dollars in the deposit of Central Bank for each 100 dollar debt. As of 2018, it has only 79 dollars in its deposit." (TP/SD)